VML Season 13 Week 1 Metagame Breakdown
It’s Halloween season*, and you know what that means: Season 13 of VML is here! This spooky season will see the launch of Duskmourn House of Horrors in a few weeks (legal for VML play starting in week 4), but for now we’re at the end of Bloomburrow Standard. Let’s take a look at what players picked for the first week of a new season!
*I live near Salem, Massachusetts; Halloween starts in August.
Week 1 Metagame
We’re starting the season strong with a diverse array of archetypes! We have 33 unique archetypes, 19 of which are run by 2 or fewer players.
Two decks stand out from the crowd in terms of popularity: Dimir Midrange (19 decks, 15.3% metashare) and Golgari Midrange (19 decks, 15.3% metashare). Both midrange decks are classic “just play good cards” style of midrange. Some Golgari Midrange players are running the Vraska, Betrayal's Sting
Vraska, Betrayal's Sting
/Innkeeper's Talent
Innkeeper's Talent
combo (a near-instant win if you have a fully-leveled Talent on the board), while others are running more removal and Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
in the mainboard. Dimir, on the other hand, is running countermagic and hand disruption in addition to the typical black-based removal (only one more year of Go for the Throat
Go for the Throat
in standard).
Domain Ramp (13 players, 10.5% metashare) and Gruul Prowess (11 players, 8.9% metashare) are also in the top 4 popular decks. The addition of Heaped Harvest
Heaped Harvest
and Fabled Passage
Fabled Passage
from Bloomburrow has kept Domain around despite the loss of the triomes (the surveil lands from MKM are doing just fine in that deck). Gruul Prowess, meanwhile, has picked up the powerful mice Emberheart Challenger
Emberheart Challenger
and Heartfire Hero
Heartfire Hero
, which rapidly become beefy threats if not dealt with immediately.
Spice Corner
A new season means a new set of spicy decks from VML players! Each week, I showcase some of the most unique decks in the VML meta (defined by me as “there is only one person playing this deck this week and I thought it looked cool”). This week’s most unique decks include Clara Lehenaff’s Boros Burn Control, Erika’s Gruul Ramp, and Bryndis T’s 5-Color Niv-Mizzet.
Clara’s “Lesbian Drama I” deck is a Boros control deck, but not the token variant we’re used to seeing in the current meta. Instead, Clara’s opted for a burn plan as her wincon, with plenty of ways to take further advantage of noncombat damage through Heartflame Duelist // Heartflame Slash
Heartflame Duelist
Heartflame Slash
for life gain, Virtue of Courage // Embereth Blaze
Virtue of Courage
Embereth Blaze
for card advantage, and Season of the Bold
Season of the Bold
for even more burn. And, of course, we can’t forget about doubling up on burn spells with one of Magic’s favorite lesbians, Chandra, Hope's Beacon
Chandra, Hope's Beacon
.
Erika’s “Smugglers combo” deck is a Gruup ramp deck aiming to cheat out beefy creatures with Smuggler's Surprise
Smuggler's Surprise
and hit hard and fast. With 10 dedicated ramp cards (and a few others that can flexibly be used to ramp or draw lands), she can easily reach the 6 mana needed for Smuggler’s Surprise as early as turn 4. With Vaultborn Tyrant
Vaultborn Tyrant
providing card advantage, Terror of the Peaks
Terror of the Peaks
creating burn, and Calamity, Galloping Inferno
Calamity, Galloping Inferno
duplicating all the other big creatures, once the threats start coming, they don’t stop coming.
Bryndis’s “Supreme Pizza” deck is a twist on domain focusing on two-color instants and sorceries, thanks to Niv-Mizzet, Supreme
Niv-Mizzet, Supreme
letting her double up on all of them. Loosely built on the domain ramp shell, this deck packs in a whole toolbox of two-color spells with a mix of removal (Legions to Ashes
Legions to Ashes
), card advantage (Pillage the Bog
Pillage the Bog
), card advantage and removal (Ill-Timed Explosion
Ill-Timed Explosion
), and some just plain fun spells (Doppelgang
Doppelgang
).
Full and up-to-date weekly stats can be found here. Some decks are missing due to late submissions, and the spreadsheet will be updated as soon as those are published to the VML site. This season, all my stats articles will be posted the day after decklists are released, due to my schedule this semester making Tuesdays hellish.
Those of you who put your deck’s archetype as “Gruul Aggro”, “Azorius Tokens”, “Jeskai Control”, or “Dimir Tempo” might notice that your archetype isn’t in the pie chart. I instead grouped them up with other archetypes that shared the same decks (or, in the case of Jeskai Control, split the two decks into Jeskai Reanimator and Jeskai Tokens, since those seem like very different versions of the Jeskai Control archetype).
In past seasons, I usually have to do this kind of data cleaning with one or two archetype names (like grouping “5-Color Ramp” and “5-Color Domain”). This makes it easier to track trends over the weeks: if in one week, all the Gruul decks were under “Gruul Aggro”, then the next week “Gruul Prowess”, it would look like two different decks in the end of season data, even if there were the exact same number of Gruul players each week.
Just wanted to explain why that happened for anyone curious. 🙂